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Painting in 4 dimensions: the Brancacci Chapel frescoes
Among the objectives in Renaissance painting were to make painted images more like real life, including the use of optically accurate perspective projection, and to tell visual stories better. Whilst...
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Painting in 4 dimensions: Renaissance Passions
In yesterday’s article, I looked at the narrative techniques used by the three fifteenth century artists who painted the superb frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel. They were telling relatively short and...
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Benjamin West and Modern History 3
Following his success with The Death of General Wolfe in 1770, the American painter of modern history Benjamin West (1738–1820) enjoyed mixed fortunes over the next decade. His appointment as painter...
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Orlando Furioso: To the moon and back, and settling scores
Astolfo flew on the hippogriff to Senapo, the Emperor of Ethiopia, who begged the prince to rid him of a flock of harpies who had been preventing the emperor from eating. Astolfo’s magic horn quickly...
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Benjamin West and Modern History 4
Through the 1780s, Benjamin West had painted a succession of classical history paintings for King George III, and some fine religious works, but seemed to have abandoned his ambition to be a ‘modern’...
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Orlando Furioso: Twins discovered, and a misogynist unseated
Bradamante had convinced herself that her lover Ruggiero had been unfaithful to her, and was going to marry Marfisa instead, so left in quest of him. After she defeated Rodomonte and liberated those he...
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Benjamin West and Modern History 5
Britain was in crisis by the time that war with the French was declared in 1803, and the American painter Benjamin West (1738–1820) turned sixty-five. Although by then he had become the second...
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Orlando Furioso: Duel and disaster
After Astolfo had recovered Orlando’s wits from the moon, he took a magic herb to Senapo, Emperor of Ethiopia, which restored the ruler’s sight. The emperor rewarded Astolfo with many troops with which...
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Orlando Furioso: Biserta sacked, and Orlando set up
King Agramante had withdrawn the battered remains of his forces from Arles, and sailed across the Mediterranean towards North Africa. When he was least expecting further trouble, his fleet came into...
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Raphael and Painting: 7 The Sistine Tapestries
Soon after Pope Leo X was elected, probably later that year or in 1514, he commissioned Raphael to supply a set of cartoons for a series of ten tapestries to be hung in the Sistine Chapel. Raphael is...
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Orlando Furioso: Death on Lampedusa
With Orlando and two colleagues preparing for a duel with Agramante’s trio on the island of Lampedusa, Ruggiero made his way to Marseilles, where Dudone had just arrived from North Africa with his...
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Raphael and Painting: 8 Prophets and Popes
By the mid-1510s, Raphael and his large and skilled workshop were benefiting from major commissions of the new Pope Leo X. Work continued on the frescoes in the stanze, and ten cartoons were being...
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Patrons and painters: Rubens the diplomat
When Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) was admitted as a master to the Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp in 1598, that part of Europe was extremely turbulent. To the north, the Protestant Netherlands had...
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Orlando Furioso: Orlando victorious, and Rinaldo in pursuit of Angelica
Orlando, his brother Oliver, and Brandimarte have been fighting King Agramante, Gradasso and King Sobrino on the island of Lampedusa. With Brandimarte just about to cut Agramante’s throat, he is killed...
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Raphael and Painting: 9 The Loggia Frescoes
Following the architect Bramante’s death in 1514, Raphael was appointed his successor. Although relatively little of the constructional work which he undertook for Pope Leo X survives, one of the gems...
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Gustave Moreau and Symbolism: Oedipus and the Sphinx
Three times the aspiring artist Gustave Moreau had tried to turn his new concept for history painting into a canvas for the Salon, and had to abandon. Over the winter of 1863-64 he made a fourth...
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Orlando Furioso: Travellers’ tales
Rinaldo, riding furiously down Italy towards Orlando, has been put up for the night in a palace, where he’s shown an enchanted goblet which his host promises will tell whether his wife is faithful....
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Raphael and Painting: 10 Last easel paintings
While Raphael oversaw the painting of frescoes in the loggia of the Palazzo Apostolico in the Vatican, he and his workshop continued work on many easel paintings. Raphael (1483–1520) and workshop, The...
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Orlando Furioso: A funeral but no wedding
Rinaldo has raced down the length of Italy and caught a ship to take him to the island of Lampedusa. He arrives there just as Orlando and Oliver have won their victory, and Agramante and Gradasso lie...
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Russian Folk Tales of Viktor Vasnetsov 1
Sometimes labels can be very misleading. I saw the Russian artist Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov (1848–1926) labelled as a Symbolist, but then when I looked at his paintings more closely I saw one of...
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